Total enrollments nationally in public elementary and secondary schools are down to just over 49 million students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
That figure is markedly off from the 50.8 million recorded in 2019, with projections of a decline to 48.2 million by 2025.
Although enrollment increases have been most notable in the states of the West, with Texas seeing a more than 10% gain and always-growing Utah nearly twice that figure, the states of the North, in particular New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois, have seen enrollment losses of generally between 5% and 10%.
The overall enrollment declines in many states, including the once-perennially growing California, is prompting school boards to approve facility consolidation projects, a trend presenting new challenges to the nation’s architects and builders, according to the publication Building Design + Construction.
Last month in Boston, where enrollment has declined from 54,300 students to just over 46,000 in the last decade, the local board of education voted to approve a merger of two long-standing schools, with reports indicating that other “single stand” schools may also soon be subject to mergers.
The Portland, Oregon school system has experienced a decline of 4,300 students out of a total 43,000 in the last 5 years. In February, the Portland School Board voted to approve the merging of a magnet school and elementary school.
One of the largest consolidation efforts has been ongoing in the El Paso Independent School District, where voters in 2016 approved a $668 million bond issue primarily designed to fund the consolidation of school facilities. Funding through that bond has targeted the consolidation of 20 campuses in response to what EPISD has called “declining enrollment and under capacity buildings.”
A similar move is currently in the talking stage in the Mattapoisett Public Schools district in eastern Massachusetts where an effort to consolidate two schools may save money in the long run but is expected to cost at least $7.4 million to begin with due to the construction of new classrooms.
An independent report looking at the Mattapoisett consolidation project has recently concluded that it could not be accomplished “without significant construction.”
Noting that builders and architects are increasingly taking on “upgrades of existing structures and campuses,” as a result of consolidation projects, Building Design + Construction references one major St. Paul, Minnesota-based architectural firm whose primary work load today is made up of renovations and additions.
Media reports indicate that the move toward more school consolidation, and hence, construction opportunities, is only going to increase in the coming years. Such consolidations, notes the publication K-12 Dive, represent an inevitable trend that “education and finance experts say was a long time coming but temporarily staved off in some places thanks to federal pandemic aid.”
By Garry Boulard
